Tomorrow LoM should finally arrive. Today however, I'm going to
take my birthday checks down to some disreputable hive of villany in the hopes of being MASSIVELY
overcharged for copies of games that would only cost me $20 tops anywhere else. If only there
was some corrupt disgruntled Funcoland employee reading this column who could give me a discount
on Dragon Force/Tactics Ogre/Panzer Dragoon Saga. I think they charge, like, $70 for PDS!

Hey Google-
When I was playing FF6 on FF Anthology last night, I noticed something
strange, and I was hoping you could clear things up for me. When you get
past the opening FMV and everything, you get to the screen where you choose
what memory card you want to choose from, etc. At the same time, there is a
character from the game, like Celes or Locke, that will run back and forth.
Last night, there was someone I have never seen before. I couldn't tell if
it was male or female, but it kind of looked Dragoonish. It had on a red
outfit and a red helmet with a white visor thing on the front. It also had
a purple cape and a purple feather or some other kind of decoration coming
off of the top of the helmet. Has anyone else ever seen something like this
before? I'm assuming that it isn't from FF6, so where is it from?

-heart of ice

Googleshng:That is an Onion Kid from FF3j. The equivolent
of a Squire/Bare/whatever. It's also possible to have Squall be there, FF5 sometimes has
Cloud... cute huh?

Long Letter

First off, I find it cool that cats and slimes can coexist. I have four cats
myself (well, three are my aunt's), but no slimes.

To the person asking about how long games can take to develop, let's not
forget the game Ultima 9, which took nigh unto forever to make. At least six
years, I'm sure. Ever since shortly after U8 was done, probably.
I don't have LoM yet, but the number eight figured a lot into SoM as well -
8 weapon classes, 8 weapons in each class (well, plus the
nearly-impossible-to-get ninth "Top" level), eight elementals of magic....
It's funny. The Ultima series also had a thing for the number eight in it's
middle trilogy. Eight classes, eight towns, eight levels in every dungeon
(each level being an 8x8 grid), and, above all, the Eight Virtues.

And on the topic of SRPGs.... I don't know how well these qualify, but how
about Brigandine, for the PSX, or Dark Wizard for the (dead) Sega CD? Dark
Wizard was really quite a nice game, actually. And Brigandine resembles it a
great deal in battle mechanics.

Why on earth does the end of Xenogears call it Episode V? I've just finished
it for the second time and still can't figure it out. (This was probably
asked back when the game first came out and people started beating it, but I
didn't read this column back then.)

What is this upcoming "Threads of Fate" game all about? Do you have any good
previews of it I can see? It's Square, so it's probably good, but I don't
know anything about it, really.

Speaking of upcoming games, do you knbow if DW7 is going to be good? I've
played 1-4, and liked them all, so I might want to get 7, if it's good.

What is/are your favorite RPG(s)? Systems? Hero Characters? Villains?

Mine: Can't pick a favorite, but among the ones I like best are Xenogears,
Suikoden II, FF8, and Lunar: SSSC (and it's sequel, which I managed to play
back on the Sega CD... I wonder how the remake will turn out...),
ChronoTrigger, and some others. My favorite Systems are the PSX and the
SNES, sicne they have the most RPGs on them. Among the Heroes, I can't
really pick an exact favorite. There are a lot of cool heroes out there. For
Villains, though, Magic Emperor Ghaleon wins, hands down. With Luca Blight
(one NASTY piece of work!) as the runner-up.

Hmm.. that Lunar 2 comment merits becoming a question -- do you know if
Lunar 2 for the PSX will remain true to the Sega CD version, or will it have
a lot of plot revisions, like L:SSSC had?

Actually, I'm not big on RPG questions.... I'm really rather good at these
games. (And I've probably beat enough for you to hire me on as a Q&A guy.
Hmm.... Guru and Oracle are taken..... I could be the RPGamer Sage! I like
the sound of that.)

-Kenneth Whitten, RPGamer Sage

P.S. That was a cool FanGoogle they sent in on the sixth (green slime, DW
style, blinking). Now if only it were done in blue.... everyone knows DW
slimes are blue (with red and metal variations).

P.P.S. Who wants to help me besiege SquareSoft Inc. and make them port over
FF4's real version and SD3?

P.P.P.S. I know it's a long letter, but if this gets printed, I will name my
first slime Googleshng.

Googleshng:Now that's a lot of questions and comments.
Let's see... Vagrant Story has a playable ToF demo, it's interesting, but I'm not going
to buy it. Lunar 2 I believe is being completely revamped just like Lunar was. The rest
of this I think has all been addressed before, a lot, and I'm in too much of a hurry to
see if I missed anything.

Vagrant Story Length

Goog,

I thinlk it would be cool if Xenogears became another Crono Trigger. It's an awsome anime-based game with no
sequal. But then, years later, on an advanced system we may not have heard about yet, a sequal will be released and
joy will spread over4 the land. The only problem will be that they've changed the battle system to much and ripped
of another game for the main character design. Hey, and Xenocross isn't such a bad name. We can only hope.

On another topic, is Vagrant Story worth getting? I know this may sound like a stupid question considering the
games magnitude, but I heard it's really short. If that's the case then I'll just rent it and buy Legend of Mana.

-Fuhrmania

P.S. You don't have to print this, but I thought I'd ask.

Googleshng:Well you know, Xenogears and Chrono Trigger
are by the same team, hence a lot of the similarity. As for Vagrant Story, if you're staying
away from it because you heard it was short, well, go get it right now. It's a nice long
hard dungeon crawl... with plus games I think.

Wark?

Hello Gu-GuRuShiNGu,
I have two unrelated questions for you. First, I am extremely excited
about the Arc the Lad Collection. I know that Arc the Lad 1, 2, 3, "making
of", and soundtrack are being included in the package, but is the Monster
Battle with Casino game being included? Also, why can chocobos only say
"Wark" in the FF series, but they can say things like "What's this feeling?
I don't want to leave. Is it sadness?" in FF Tactics. Thanks for your time.

Tom Otearai

Googleshng:To answer your Arc the Lad question, yes,
WD is cramming in 6 CDs of goodness. Aren't they the best? As for why FFT chocobos can
talk, well, I assume you wouldn't listen to me if I explained how FFT was off in it's
own little world, and that the laws of the universe were different there... so... clearly
Ramza is a Pokémon. Therefore, he can understand what any cute little creature
is saying, so it translates it for you.

Uh-oh.

So.. the latest news is that SNK is withdrawing from
the US.

Smurf.

Does that mean no GBC Crystalis? Not that I own one,
it's just that Crystalis is a Sweet Ass Game (tm), and
must be relived!

Ahh well.

-FakeOut "Emulators are bad... ahh hell, why not?"

Googleshng:Well, there's a chance that they'll turn
Crystalis over to someone else so that it will still be released here, and I REALLY
hope so too. Crystalis is one of the few games (heck, there's just 2) that I really like
but do not own. I was planning to get that remake.

Chrono Cross

Dear Mister/Miss Google,

I was recently taking a peek at the Japanese FF9 box art and I noticed that it
was almost unnoticably crooked and the white on it seemed off around the title. In
fact, it's really obvious that the color is off around the title. Don't you notice that
too?

And for the question. Doesn't the Chrono Cross demo movie make you want it so
much more than you did before you saw it? I know it made me want it more.

Dim

Googleshng:I haven't really looked at the FF9 box
art. As for Chrono Cross, that's what demos are for! Also, the ammount of weird looking
stuff in that demo really has me interested in the setting.

Quickies

What lang/IDE are you using for your game? Please don't tell me it's
RealBasic! Also, will it be Carbonized?

It's in C++, the final version will probably require Quickdraw 3D. This is because Quickdraw 3D
makes this home brewed 3D engine look SO MUCH BETTER. 8)

Woah, that's funny. It's the 15th, and the 12th's column is up, although I
could've sworn I read the 13th and 14th...

Someone REALLY messed things up. I was up until 3:30 AM fixing stuff.

I forgot to ask Mark. I even supplied my own torture utensils.

Huh?

you have eight fingers on each hand? thats messed up.

No, not on each hand. All humans have 4 on each for a total of 8, plus two thumbs. Well, except
for mutants and amputees.

I noticed you used thirteen exclamation points yesterday... I wish I could
do that... I've only mastered the power of the period...

~The Sack~

What? ... is evolving! ... evolved into !?!

So you don't have a Car, Car Keys, a Care, a Cat, a Crysknife or a Captain
Planet Tee Shirt... Weird!

Lord of the Blades Dragon

Hey! I have 5 cats!

what is a tilde??.....

This is a tilde: ~ Master using it and you can have this.

The Last Laugh:

Just to clear up the confusion, someone really did send me a totally blank e-mail
yesterday. Weird huh?

Googleshng "Off to Funcoland" @rpgamer.com
$70 for one used game, HONESTLY!